Are We Ready for Widespread Use of AI in the IT Sector?

When artificial intelligence and automation are mentioned, many people assume that their jobs will be threatened. Although AI is still in the process of development, people fear that in the near future they will be completely replaced by all sorts of robots, machines and automation tools and that there won’t be enough job opportunities left for them.

AI has a variety of different benefits for the IT sector, as well as for the numerous other industries, but the real question is – are we ready for it? In this article, we will explore what AI technology really means and how it is expected to affect the future of IT.

The current situation

In recent years, AI has become one of the most revolutionary technological developments especially when it comes to the IT sector. Although only 1 in 5 businesses implemented AI technology to a certain extent to their daily operations, the expectations of what this technology can do for us are high nevertheless, so there is a rather huge gap between execution and ambition.

While around 80 percent of business executives believe that AI can be beneficial for the growth of their business and the advancements in the IT sector, there are still many executives who think that their business strategies are already good enough and that there is no need for the implementation of AI.

The reason for this is mostly that entrepreneurs are worried that AI might bring large security issues and that it will require a lot of financial investments for employee training. Training AI requires many different skills, such as having a wide knowledge about building algorithms, knowing how to monitor the algorithm training, as well as knowing how to gather and incorporate the data that will be relevant for the training purposes.

Taking all of this into consideration, it is easy to understand why many businesses remain reluctant to adopting AI solutions nowadays.

How AI might impact the future

It is impossible to say with absolute certainty how AI will affect the future of the IT and other industries exactly, but given what we know, we can make some plausible predictions.

According to many industry experts, the number one factor we should worry about is security in the digital world. Knowing that 3.2 billion people are using the internet worldwide at the moment, it is easy to imagine why security might become an issue.

If the challenges security presents are not resolved in time, we can see a future of private, closed networks and restricted information sharing – the opposite of how we use the internet today.

Having said this, it is important to note that AI by itself is not the actual problem here. Like with any other piece of technology, the problems AI can impose on our society start with the people using or misusing AI. If placed in the hands of a malicious individual, AI-powered tools could cause serious damage to any piece of infrastructure that is connected to a network.

The benefits of AI-powered solutions

While some people will keep claiming that AI is dangerous and that it could affect various industries negatively, for a more objective perspective, we need to take a look at the bright side as well, as this technology brings endless benefits.

Some companies that specialize in AI-powered tools boast a staggering 90 percent decrease in manual work, which is a major advantage meaning that the employees will have more time to focus on their customers and other important aspects of their business, while the technology facilitates their work to a great extent.

For instance, one of the WorkFusion’s best solutions – Smart Process Automation (SPA) – can help the members of your IT department to easily configure and automate complex processes. This powerful solution offers built-in process templates as well as cognitive and robotic handling features that enable you to set up characteristic workflows.

To sum up, since it is impossible to know what the future holds for us or any of our major industries including the IT sector, the best thing we can do is guess. But with a technology as powerful as AI, it is hard to say what its overall effect on our day to day existence will be.

AI can offer many solutions to improve the quality and efficiency of our work, but it can also pose a serious threat to our digital security, for example. However, it is clear that AI technology is already being implemented in the IT sector and the overall modern business environment, so whether we are ready or not, AI is coming and the best we can do is to prepare.